No More Learning

It took
us four hours' hard work to make the grave. As we worked, we argued out
whether it was right to say as much as we remembered of the Burial of
the Dead.

We compromised things by saying the Lord's Prayer with a private
unofficial prayer for the peace of the soul of The Boy. Then we filled
in the grave and went into the verandah--not the house--to lie down to
sleep. We were dead-tired.

When we woke the Major said, wearily: "We can't go back till tomorrow.
We must give him a decent time to die in. He died early THIS morning,
remember. That seems more natural. " So the Major must have been lying
awake all the time, thinking.

I said: "Then why didn't we bring the body back to the cantonments? "

The Major thought for a minute:--"Because the people bolted when they
heard of the cholera. And the ekka has gone! "

That was strictly true. We had forgotten all about the ekka-pony, and he
had gone home.
So, we were left there alone, all that stifling day, in the Canal Rest
House, testing and re-testing our story of The Boy's death to see if it
was weak at any point. A native turned up in the afternoon, but we said
that a Sahib was dead of cholera, and he ran away. As the dusk gathered,
the Major told me all his fears about The Boy, and awful stories of
suicide or nearly-carried-out suicide--tales that made one's hair crisp.
He said that he himself had once gone into the same Valley of the Shadow
as the Boy, when he was young and new to the country; so he understood
how things fought together in The Boy's poor jumbled head. He also said
that youngsters, in their repentant moments, consider their sins much
more serious and ineffaceable than they really are. We talked together
all through the evening, and rehearsed the story of the death of The
Boy. As soon as the moon was up, and The Boy, theoretically, just
buried, we struck across country for the Station. We walked from eight
till six o'clock in the morning; but though we were dead-tired, we did
not forget to go to The Boy's room and put away his revolver with the
proper amount of cartridges in the pouch. Also to set his writing-case
on the table. We found the Colonel and reported the death, feeling more
like murderers than ever. Then we went to bed and slept the clock round;
for there was no more in us.

The tale had credence as long as was necessary, for every one forgot
about The Boy before a fortnight was over. Many people, however, found
time to say that the Major had behaved scandalously in not bringing in
the body for a regimental funeral. The saddest thing of all was a letter
from The Boy's mother to the Major and me--with big inky blisters all
over the sheet. She wrote the sweetest possible things about our great
kindness, and the obligation she would be under to us as long as she
lived.

All things considered, she WAS under an obligation; but not exactly as
she meant.